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Sports movies rarely go the distance at the box office

After swinging and missing with 'Draft Day,' Hollywood returns to the playing field Friday with 'Million Dollar Arm,' the story of a real sports agent who recruits Indian cricket players to Major League.

After swinging and missing with Draft Day last month, Hollywood returns to the playing field Friday with Million Dollar Arm, based on the true story of a sports agent who recruits Indian cricket players to Major League Baseball.

Early reviews and box office projections have been strong for the drama starring Jon Hamm — a welcome sign for the sports-film genre, which has been a decades-long staple of the film industry but has struggled of late.

Draft Day collected a middling $28 million, despite starring Kevin Costner, opening in the midst of the NFL draft and eerily paralleling the Cleveland Browns' drafting of college star Johnny Manziel.

Still, movies are itching to take the field. When the Game Stands Tall, with Jim Caviezel starring as real-life De La Salle High School football coach Bob Ladouceur, hits screens Aug. 22. Costner returns Nov. 21 for McFarland, the story of a small-town California track coach who turns his team into championship contenders.

"Disney seems bullish on Million Dollar Arm," says Ray Subers of Box Office Mojo. "The movie looks like a mix of Moneyball, Slumdog Millionaire and The Blind Side, and early word is strong.

"Baseball movies can be a tough sell, though," he says. Over the past decade, the highest-grossing baseball movies are 42 ($95 million) and Moneyball ($76 million).

Indeed, most sports films have become long shots at the box office. The average sports drama earns $27 million, according to Box Office Mojo. Sports comedies fare slightly better, averaging $30 million. By comparison, the average animated movie earns $58 million.

Selling the movies overseas, where American sports mean little, is even tougher. Despite being an Oscar winner and starring an international celebrity in Brad Pitt, 2011's Moneyball took in a paltry $35 million in ticket sales outside the USA, or less than a third of its overall gross. The typical Hollywood release does two-thirds of its business internationally.

Still, sports are too ingrained in American culture to disappear from the landscape, experts say.

"Sports have their own dramas, heroes, great plays and crazy endings," says Jeffrey McCall, professor of communication at DePauw University in Indiana.

"It is really difficult for Hollywood to top great sports reality with fictionalized sports movies," he says. "Sports fans would rather watch real games. Movie lovers would rather watch real movies. To make it on the screen, a sports story needs a human element that goes beyond sports so it can appeal to a wider range of people. That's why Rudy and The Blind Side were successful."

They can hit Oscar gold, too. Rocky took the best picture in 1976, followed five years later by best-picture winner Chariots of Fire.

More important, observers say, Hollywood will continue to swing for the fences, even with sagging box office numbers, because sports flicks have enthralled Americans since we won one for Ronald Reagan's Gipper in Knute Rockne, All American in 1940.

Dwight DeWerth-Pallmeyer, director of communication studies at Widener University in Delaware, says sports movies can be as beloved as the sports themselves.

"This is very much a cultural phenomenon," he says, one "that would be hard to understand, much less appreciate, outside the United States."